


How Deep is your Flesh

by R3N41SS4NC3



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Animal Death, F/F, F/M, Furries, Gore, Homunculi, Nonsexual Nudity, Slavery, Snakes, Stein is Not Good, animal testing, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:28:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21881887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R3N41SS4NC3/pseuds/R3N41SS4NC3
Summary: While their masters prepare the end of the world, two homunculi form an unlikely bond of companionship and mutual assistance, growing closer than either thought possible. Will they be strong enough to break away from the cycle of death that surrounds them, or will they fall under the weight of duty and routine?
Relationships: Maka Albarn/Crona, Medusa Gorgon/Franken Stein
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24
Collections: Soul Eater Resonance Bang 2019





	How Deep is your Flesh

**Author's Note:**

> there was a mishap on my end and the last bit of the fic didn't make it here from the original doc. It should be fixed now. Sorry for the inconvenience.
> 
> also, check out the awesome corresponding art for this fic https://ultradeadart.tumblr.com/post/189773698990/standing-before-her-inside-the-mirrors-frame-is

Maka and Crona first encountered each other at a bustling night market. Though neither expected anything great to come from the moment of meeting, this instant was the spark that eventually burned their lives to the ground.

Maka was, as always, trailing a half step behind her master and creator, the illustrious Franken Stein, as he moved down the rows of kiosks brandishing illicit wares and curios: Flamedrake eggs, gravira saplings, werewolf pelts, crystal leaf tea, dragonsbreath gum, nymph lures, wurm gems, wisps; this magical market has it all. This particular market only happens for one night every 20 years and boasts the largest assortment of goods anywhere.

This is why, as time is at a premium tonight, Maka silently questions her master’s decision to spend so long at this particular stall. The goods on display aren’t that rare, or even things they would need regularly. She’s long since learned to not voice these thoughts aloud, though; she just has to trust her master’s actions and decisions despite her misgivings. She busies herself double checking his belongings, making certain that they were not pickpocketed or have otherwise misplaced something. His possessions remain secure. She wasn’t actually worried that anything was stolen, as she has had all of Stein’s purchases wrapped in her tentacles since they entered the basket hanging from her shoulder.

She glances at Stein again. He hasn’t moved, still examining a small wooden totem. Though she can sense the magic it holds inside, she knows for a fact that she and Stein could make a much more powerful ward on their own. Growing bored of the tedium, she decides to follow her master’s lead and look around the shop as well, making sure to keep Stein in her line of sight at all times; it would be unbecoming - nay, unthinkable - of a homunculus to allow their master to come under any harm, as she was made and raised for the sole purpose of assisting Stein in his work, she is almost hardwired to protect him.

Maka glances around for something, anything, interesting. Her eyes slide over the shelved crystal balls, packs of flight dust, and unemptying goblets and land on a strange mirror, leaned against the back corner of the shop, between a singing stick and a tunic that reads “witch curses: Fireball, fuck, shit.” Though she wouldn’t consider herself vain by any means, she approaches the mirror. Stein’s work has no use for them, so he doesn’t keep any in the house.

Standing before her, inside the mirror’s frame, is her reflection. It must have been at least 50 years since she last saw herself in anything more reflective than a beaker or a puddle, but she doesn’t look all that different from before. She has the same long blonde twintails, same green eyes, same tangle of deep blue tentacles for a right arm. Her left arm and both legs look human, though they all have small differences from standard form, such as retractable claws. Maka examines her gills, stretching her neck out to expose one side of them; though they won’t function unless submerged, she can still check for any irregularities or signs of illness. A healthy magenta: As if the doctor would allow one of his most prized possessions to accumulate damage. The only new addition to her body are the eye stalks atop her head: One locked onto her master, the other lazily roaming her surroundings. Stein attached them only a few months ago, said they were for tonight, but remained vague on specifics.

She takes a break from her self-inspection when she notices a hooded figure approach her master. Returning to his side, she arrives in time to hear the figure’s greeting: Some nonsense, like a code. Stein answers in turn, and they both smile a small smile, each pleased with the encounter. From their voice, Maka judges the stranger to be a woman. Her hood continues down, covering torso and legs as a single garment. Though her face is hidden by the shadow of the hood, her arms distract from the air of anonymity, tattooed with sleeves of twin serpents, a gaping mouth at each wrist.

The hooded woman snaps her fingers and an unnoticed figure squicks into place beside the woman as if more liquid than solid. For a moment, Maka thinks the newest arrival to be a domestic slime, but her assumption is proven wrong when she gets a good look at their odd form, unfamiliar even to her extensive zoological knowledge. They’re humanoid and covered in fur, but long and lanky and unlike any were-beast she knows of. They don’t look quite like any magical creature she’s aware of, seeming to borrow features from many magical and mundane beasts. They look almost like a humanoid snake covered in fur. Perhaps they’re a homunculus as well? That would be exciting! She never gets to spend time around her ilk.

The new arrival holds out a hand. In their palm is a small drawstring pouch. Though the pouch is mundane, Maka can sense the power of its contents, her awareness slipping out of this world and into the adjacent, ethereal realm that holds the essence of things, the ideas behind their existence. The contents of the pouch feel sticky and taste like ozone and yearning: A tracker spell? With a look, Stein instructs Maka to take the pouch and add it to his other belongings.

Then, as she’s finding it a proper place in her basket, Stein takes hold of her left eye stalk. Maka freezes, feeling suddenly vulnerable and dreading the inevitability of what she knows will happen next. She knows that remaining still is the path of least pain. He pulls. Her jaw clenches as she holds in a scream, eye watering, as it feels like the earth as a large tree is ripped from it. All things considered, the stalk detaches without much pain; it still feels like her hair was just ripped out and her scalp set ablaze, but it doesn’t quite compare to the mind numbing dissociative pain of losing a limb, the sort that, after which, would take her hours to stand up.

Stein holds out the detached, bloody stalk, and the other homunculus takes it, wraps it in a cloth that quickly stains pinkish red, and sequesters it to their own basket. Normally, Maka would wonder why that had just happened, who these people are, if her eye stalks have served their purpose and if her other one will be likewise removed; and she does think about these things, later, during her housework. Right now, her brain is filled with pain and thus nearly incapable of deeper thought.

Without a word, the hooded figure turns and walks away. Her homunculus follows her, stopping by the clerk to drop off some coins and pick up a wooden totem before catching up with their mistress, sparing no backward glance for her and her master. Not that she would ever expect otherwise; a homunculus’s loyalty should always be wholly centered upon their creator; after all, one who gives life has just as much right to take it away.

She numbly follows Stein to the cashier, fishing out currency after an unacceptably rude moment wherein she forgot her duty as a homunculus; her pain should not keep her from her duties. One purchase of a random, egregiously overpriced curio later, she and Stein leave the store and continue their shopping. The pain fades quickly thanks to her overclocked pituitary gland and the extra servings of endorphines, and Maka is able to return to performing her duties without flaw, doing her best to make up for her mistake earlier. She belatedly realizes that the money exchanged at the shop of low-level magical items was not in purchase of goods, but services: A purchase of discretion and silence.

Life returns to normal for Maka. At least, as normal as slaving away for an inescapable man who holds the keys to your life and death in his hands; Maka cooks, organizes the lab, gardens, helps with experiments, cleans, is experimented on, and more standard homunculus stuff. One evening, months after the night at the market, Maka decides to tactically pry for more details concerning the contents of the pouch from that night. As it has been the oddest and therefore most interesting occurrence in the last 37 years - Stein almost never speaks to anyone without purpose, leaving most corresponding duties to her - Maka’s brain has been abuzz with curiosity for the implications of that meeting. Through persistent, gentle, oblong questioning of Stein and by listening to his mutterings-to-self, she’s been able to learn some information.

She knows that the hooded figure’s name is M; at least, that’s the pseudonym she is going by. She knows that the lithe figure that assisted m was a definitely a homunculus, so it can be assumed that m is an alchemist like Stein or another sort of magical tinkerer. She knows that both m and Stein have the ability to track the other through the items exchanged that night: A dangerous thing, letting others find you. Does this mean that Stein trusts this woman? Is he arranging a partnership? Perhaps there is another trade on the horizon? Or this could be a challenge, an gauntlet thrown to the ground to decide the hierarchy.

Maka tries not to rely too much on her own assumptions and guesses, but, given how reticent Stein is to even his own homunculus, she has little information and often has to fill in the blanks for just about everything. Her only saving grace was being taught by an increasingly impatient Stein to read, hundreds of years ago, when she was newly created. He grew frustrated when her predecessor died before she was fully educated in the ways of a homunculus and decided that books would be the most convenient way to get her out of his hair and to work.

But there is no book she can turn to to sate this curiosity.

She’s shocked and caught unsure when he, in response to one of her prodding, reaching questions - one that is in search of an answer not to her actual question but to a question obtusely related, as if she is putting together an entire puzzle in search of a single piece - stops writing, turns to her, and asks for her opinion on the matter of m. She knows this game; he wants to figure out what she knows already. Her predecessor warned her about these things he does to judge his homunculus’ worth and danger level. The trick is to be smart enough to answer his question directly, but dumb enough to not be right.

Maka answers appropriately, with a half-truth. Stein smiles the hidden smile he thinks she can’t see, the smile that is more a crinkle around the eyes than an upward turn of the lips, the smile of a silently condescending man who is in on a joke he himself told. He shoots down her purposefully wrong answer and goes into the actual mechanisms of his current plan, using too much jargon, but basically explaining that M is a witch who specializes in biomagic - one of his favorite fields of study - and they will be combining efforts to create a magical bioweapon. Her and his interests align for now. She, as far as he can tell, wants to destroy the country for whatever reason. He has been itching to retest his hypotheses on the subject of power vacuums, and this will be a prime stage for such an experiment.

He further goes on to explain that they will be moving within the month, and that everything portable needs to be packed and everything else destroyed. He doesn’t expect to return to the lab then. Maka takes note of the enormous quantity of half-done experiments: Half-grown fetuses in tubes, various cadavers in the midst of being stitched together, plants under sunlamps. She takes note of these things and dreads her immediate future of packing it all away; she supposes that the reduction in other chores such as cleaning and maintenance will free up some of her day to dedicate toward packing, but even so it will be a nigh Sisyphean task to pack away all of the lab by their move date.

The rest of Maka’s life at this lab is consumed by boxes and bundles. She does nothing but pack the lab, or so it feels; it has become so bad - her time so crunched - that she has had to go without sleep for the better part of a fortnight. It is with blessed exhaustion that she drops the struck match, letting its flame expand in a violent poof in a straight line that finishes at Stein’s as-of-now-former lab. The doorway consumes the line of fire and is in turn consumed. Heat and smoke grow together, hanging from the windows and crawling down the walls. The garden, dried from the heat, goes up in flame and Maka feels an unexpected pang of sadness; she worked hard on growing those herbs.

She turns away before she is made to feel more pain at the loss of this place. It isn’t like she and Stein haven’t changed locations before. But for some reason, this move feels final, like this house of his that now burns is the start of the end. If asked, she wouldn’t be able to name what she worries will end.

Not that anyone asks; Stein, even if he weren’t furiously scribbling in a notebook in the cabin of his carriage, wouldn’t bother himself to ask her about her feelings. He’s never been one for emotional introspection, in neither himself nor those around him; the closest he gets to caring about the feelings of another being is wanting to understand the chemical makeup of emotions: Where and how those chemicals form, how they are received by the brain, and how they can be manufactured.

Maka lets the sorrowful anger simmer under the surface of her skin, not bothering to examine it, unable to address it. She allows the frustration to add to the hollow pit inside her, a stone dropped into a hole so deep it traps the sound; she has enduring so much through her centuries of service to the doctor that the anger borne from the loss of sown life is infantisimal.

The final preparations are now complete and it is time to leave, time for the next phase of life that must be met with the same uncertain anticipation of turning a page of a book she hates but can’t put down; all that is left is the journey to her unwilled destination. Maka climbs into the bench at the front of the carriage, the seat that, on a more mundane carriage, would be reserved for a driver. This carriage, a gift given to repay a favor, is far from it’s mundane, horse-drawn counterparts. Most noticeably, it has neither beasts of burden to pull it nor wheels; instead it has four long legs, currently folded in over themselves like a grasshopper’s, but many times over. When she gives the signal, they straighten and raise the cabin high into the air and approach their destination with long, lilting strides that would make less accustomed riders nauseous. It moves fast for its seemingly leisurely pace, never moving faster than a casual, languid walk yet speeding out of the forest and into the rolling hills that prelude the mountainous horizon, already miles and miles from the burning wreckage of Stein’s former lab.

Even at this velocity, faster than the crow flies and just as direct, the trip will take hours, and, though Maka must remain vigilant for danger and cannot rest deeply, she allows herself to relax and take in the view. It isn’t often that she and Stein take the carriage so she rarely has the opportunity to enjoy the sights. Being so high up, no matter where, is a blessedly beautiful thing, allowing visage of distant mountain, far-off rivers, solitary trees, and nearby aves. They’re far above the ground and nearly all creatures, but some solitary birds of prey stay at this height to hunt. They curiously inspect her and her carriage, but move on soon enough.

Her perspective is constantly changing as the enchanted carriage sways heavily, like a top heavy giraffe in a windstorm. From left to right and back again the carriage sways for the entirety of the journey. She feels nauseaous. She would probably have spewed the contents of her stomach if she were able to, but Stein purposefully removed her ability to vomit, citing her immunity to poison as reason for her not needing the function. But, of course, he left nausea intact. She would begrudge him for that if she didn’t owe him her life. She knows she shouldn’t hold any negativity toward him, but she can’t quite help but envy his position in the magically gyroscopic inside of the carriage that robs occupants of any sense of motion; for all that Stein could feel, he was sitting in a stationary room on the ground and only the wobbly, speedy scenery seen through the car windows signals motion.

And so the journey continues. Maka watches the landscape shift from grassland to craggy mountains that threaten to consume the sky that in turn give way to dry, flat desert. The trip doesn’t end there, however. It isn’t until they are situated between clear blue sky and dense, verdant forest that the carriage finally stops chasing the sun and settles in front of a flat-top rock: a protrusion of subsurface granite. The car squats and a hole in the rock face comes into view. A cave. How appropriate for the snake to live in a cave. Maka hops off the driver’s bench and takes a moment to stretch her legs and back, loosening the muscles and cracking the joints. It feels nice to be able to take moment to herself: A rarity. She gets maybe a half hour to herself outside of work and sleep, something she has to budget strictly if she wants to work on any sort of personal project.

Though she doesn’t have enough time to develop many interests, Maka has cultivated two great passions over the decades: Reading and writing. In addition to these two great passions, Maka has a handful of dimmer passions, like gardening and other stuff. She dreams of one day completing her comprehensive guide for homunculus training; she has been writing it for nearly three centuries now and she thinks it is probably far past an acceptable level of completion, but she procrastinates bringing it up with the doctor in case he sees it’s creation as a superfluous waste of time and somehow finds more work for her; or worse, he could see her personal interests as a sign of insubordination. 

Before Stein can notice that the carriage has stopped and question her, Maka ends her time alone and approaches the car door. She opens it and announces their arrival. Stein puts away his ever-present notebook and steps out. He takes a moment to glance around and get acquainted with the geography - as little of it he can see through the trees - and Maka takes the time to release the luggage from its bindings that imprison it atop the carriage. It all falls to the ground in a messy jumble, before rearranging itself into neat ranks, ambulatory because of the millions of tiny, insectoid legs that are part of the exteriors of each bag, trunk, and chest.

Stein breaks from his inspection of the horizons and minutia of the new location and makes for the aforementioned hole in the rock face. The master, an artificial human, and mounds of animated luggage approach the presumed entrance to their new base of operations, and a person steps out of the shadows of the rock’s innards and into the light. It is a woman dressed in an above-the-knee black dress and white lab coat, with bare feet and a strange twisting braid over her chest. Maka doesn’t know much about braids, but she does know that it takes more than two strands of hair to make one.

The woman smiles pleasantly, warmly, invitingly, and welcomes Stein. “Welcome, Immortal Alchemist Franken Stein. It’s a pleasure to work alongside someone as accomplished as yourself.”

“Likewise, Snake Witch Medusa Gorgon. I look forward to our arrangement. It should provide some interesting data,” he responds.

“I’m sure it will most interesting. Now, please, come in; let me show you around.”

Medusa reenters the cave, followed by Stein, then Maka, then the many suitcases. Instead of rough rock walls and stalag-structures, the cave is fully furnished, with tile floors, recessed lighting, and off-white-painted walls. It’s like teleportation, but Maka knows the feeling of teleportation and this is definitively not that.; No, this is just a strange juxtaposition: the sudden transition from bare rock to comforting domesticity. Not that Maka is comforted by this decor; it is all too foreign and strange for her to embrace suddenly.

Stein and Medusa continue to exchange pleasantries, keeping to lighter subjects for the time being, neither quite ready to show their hand and bring up their reason for meeting. Maka follows the pair to a door. Medusa introduces it as Stein’s bedroom and offers to let him get settled, explaining that there will be plenty of time for work later, but he turns her down and finally broaches the obvious subject. Though he lost the subtle power play, Maka knows he doesn’t care; he was only playing along to get to know Medusa better.

Maka is left behind with the luggage when Medusa and Stein continue on ahead to the lab. She begins unpacking. Most of the contents of the various trunks and chests are meant for the laboratory, so she leaves them closed. Instead, she unpacks his more private items: mostly clothes, books, a communication mirror, a desk, and other essentials. Though the animated luggage makes moving much easier, it can’t unpack for her.

When she’s done, only lab equipment and a small bag remains packed away: her personal possessions. She assumes she’ll get a chance to unpack, but she doesn’t know where her quarters are, so she shoulders her bag and makes toward the lab, following the hall she saw Medusa and Stein travel down, hoping that she will be able to find them without trouble. Though she tries to not entertain the idea, she’s excited for the moments alone to explore and familiarize herself with her new surroundings.

On her search for the laboratory, she passes a dining room with a long, ornately sculpted and decorated table and brilliant chandelier. Maka pauses at the entryway to the room, staring with wide, wondrous eyes. Stein was never one for indulgence, but it seems this Medusa is a truly extravagant bitch. Maka wonders if she’ll find similarly beautiful and shiny things in the other rooms. Unfortunately, she doesn’t currently have the chance to check for such gilded baubles, as when she turns to check the next room, she sees Medusa’s homunculus standing a respectful distance away: Close enough to demand attention, far enough to excuse intrusion. They’re dressed in an inky black dress that reaches almost to the floor, stopping just above their boots.

“Hello?” Maka regards them with curiosity. She’s never spend more than passing moments around others of her kind and is excited to just have someone to talk to.

The other homunculus mumbles something, but it isn’t loud enough for Maka to catch.

“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”

“Oh! Um, i said that Lord Stein, he uh, wants you. In the lab! I meant in the lab. He wants you in the lab.” They sag in relief after getting that sentence out, as if they were holding a painful amount of tension inside, like a rubber band stretched between two people’s hands, ready to snap and hurt someone.

“Okay. Would you mind showing me where that is? I don’t really know my way around here yet,” she asks.

“Um. I think…” They glance around worriedly. “Yes. Th-that should be okay.”

“Great! Lead the way,” Maka says with a smile. This is the perfect opportunity to talk shop and get to know her fellow lab assistant. As they walk through the hall, Maka strikes back up a conversation, trying to be friendly.

“So what sort of stuff do you do around here?” She asks.

“um, mostly just cook and clean. Sometimes lady m-Medusa lets me do the shopping if I’m good.”

“What about in the lab?” She’s met with a confused stare. “i mean, she’s a witch, right?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a lot different that an alchemist like Stein, so i was wondering how you help with Medusa’s work.”

“I uh, don’t?” They look concerned that this is the wrong answer and nervously continue. “i mean, i kind of, just, stay out of the way mostly? Sometimes i clean up messes. That is, when her snakes don’t want it. Sometimes she gets me to put away her supplies?”

“You don’t act as her lab assistant?” She’s absolutely flaberghasted.

“No, lady Medusa prefers that i keep out of her lab. She says i ruin the mood.”

“That’s weird. I figured all homunculi helped with lab work.” The other homunculus shrinks in on themself, as if she raised a hand to slap them, and she realizes the mistake of her phrasing. She hurries to correct herself. “Not that I'm much of an expert or anything. I mean, i kind of am, since I wrote a book on it, but that’s just my experiences. It’s more of an autobiography than an actual guide or anything. For all i know, I'm the weird one for helping out in the lab.”

They abruptly stop to stare at Maka with wide, wonder filled eyes. Maka feels a little uncomfortable meeting under their gaze, like a mentally unprepared model on the catwalk.

“You can write?”

“Yes?”

“And read, too?”

“Uh-huh. Can’t you?”

They shake their head, aghast and incredibly impressed with her apparently esoteric skills. They remain like this just long enough for Maka to start to feel uncomfortable and exposed. She isn’t used to the attention. She coughs into her hand and that seems to break her peer out of their reverie. They shake their head to refocus, and Maka notices their nose twitch a little, making their hitherto unseen whiskers shine in the light. She has to hold in her coo at how adorable the sight was

“R-right. Um. Yes. We should get you to the lab, before Lord Stein gets impatient,” they say before hurrying to their destination.

Nothing more passes between them on the next leg of their journey despite Maka’s attempts to keep conversation flowing, and too soon she is entering Medusa’s lab and searching for her silver haired master. She sees him inspecting a specimen - what looks to be a stretched-out humanoid in a tall, floor-to-ceiling glass tube: One of many in such containers.

She coughs politely to announce her presence. He doesn’t respond or otherwise acknowledge her presence. She’s used to this though, and waits patiently in his periphery. She isn’t waiting long before the smooth, cold voice of a stranger interrupts her wait.

“You let your pet in the lab, Stein? How unseemly.”

Maka turns to meet the owner of the snide remark. The lady of the house, Medusa, stands with hands on cocked hips and a sneer, her eyes cold and dismissive. Maka isn’t sure whether to be intimidated or pissed off. Before she can open her mouth and earn any additional ire from her hostess, Stein speaks up.

“Yes, I asked for her here to set up my equipment. I assume that won’t be a problem?”

“Of course not.” She’s smiling and waving off the offense like it’s no big deal. “I just wish you’d asked me first. I prefer to keep my workspace free of pests is all.”

“Your workspace? I thought you said we were partners here. Or am i misunderstanding our arrangement?” His voice is harsh and challenging.

“No no, you’re right. What’s mine is yours. It’s just been so long since I've worked with someone else. I assure you, i meant no offense.” Her smile is weaponized innocence and Stein falls to the gentle blade of her words.

“I’m sure. In the future, i would ask that you allow Maka to assist me without interference. She knows how to do her job.”

Maka silently preens at the compliment - more of an acknowledgement of her aptitude, but that’s as close as she’s ever gotten to actual praise and she’ll take what she can get - and smiles coyly at the witch of the house. The saccharine smile doesn’t drop from her face, but Medusa’s eyes lose what little light they had as she stares her down. Maka marks this as a victory on her mental scoreboard, which she has a feeling she will be updating a lot in her coming time under Medusa’s roof. Probably not the best start to her time here, but oh well; Medusa started it.

“Maka, would you set up my lab? Once you’re finished with that, return to your regular duties. I won’t have further need of your presence tonight,” Stein tells her. He motions to a line of empty tables and shelves against a wall. She nods and makes her way over there. The luggage follows her, as it has since she freed it from the carriage, and she unpacks it, arranging all the equipment, specimens, and supplies to match Stein’s previous lab. She can’t get it quite the same, as the space is different and she has to make concessions for less used devices, but she thinks her master will deem this sufficiently close to his preferences.

When she’s done, the trunks consume each other in a process much like a matrioshka doll consuming its partners that is best left undescribed and Maka returns to her ‘regular duties.’ She isn’t entirely sure what that entails as she’s fairly certain many of her duties, such as tending to the garden, didn’t survive the move. Maka supposes she should talk to… to… Oh no, did she forget to catch the name of the other homunculus? She’s embarrassed at the oversight and lapse in manners; she needs to correct this and introduce herself as soon as possible. If she’s lucky, they won’t hold her inaction against her and they can become friends, or at least friendly. Either way, she’ll need to get them to tell her her duties.

But first, she needs to find them. As she searches the halls, she hears the sound of glass and porcelain clinking against each other. Following the sounds leads her to the dining room she inspected earlier and gives her a glimpse of the other homunculus as they set the table, moving two sets of silverware and dishes to their appropriate positions, from a serving cart to the table. Maka watches them work for a moment, curious to see how they move and do things; after all, it would be rude to assume her way of doing things is the right way while she’s in another’s home. It seems, however, that there are only so many ways to set a table and their process is uninterestingly similar to her own.

“Excuse me.”

The other homunculus flinches at her address and almost drops their handful of silverware, but once the utensils are secure again in their grasp they questioningly look to her.

“Stein told me to ‘return to my duties,’ but I’m not really sure what those are yet. Would you mind an extra hand with what you’re doing?”

“Um. Sure?”

“Great! What can i do?” She asks with a friendly smile. They look down at the stuff in their hands and on their cart, then hand her the silverware in their hand. She grabs the utensils from them, arranging them to mirror the other set up.

“I’m Maka, by the way. What’s your name?”

“M-m-my name? It’s uh…”

A long moment passes in which panicked emotions flit across their face and Maka starts to worry if she said something wrong before they speak up.

“Crona.”

“Crona? That’s a nice name,” She says, meaning it. Its unique and moves through her mouth pleasantly. She could get used to saying it. So, she says it again, slowly, feeling each sound as it passes through her lips. Then she says it again and again, getting used to saying her potential friend’s name. She only stops when she notices Crona has stopped setting the table to stare at her strangely.

Maka chases the herd of tuskers - more of a stampede for all the damage they deal to the environment: Ripping up dirt, tearing through brush, stripping bark from trees - through the forest, herding the beasts to their final destination, egging them on by whipping stragglers and slowpokes with her arm-tentacles; the teeth inside do wonders for inflicting pain and inspiring fear in her prey.

She leaps from branch to branch, following the herd from the back. The incredible mobility granted by her artificially superior physiology allowing her to control the herd from all sides despite her being the only shepard; she swings from branches and jumps off of tree trunks to swat at stragglers; in the instant her tentacle-whip impacts with the flesh of the beasts, she tastes its fear, confusion, and desperation.

The herd breaks through the final line of trees and into a split rock formation. Through some great cataclysm, a hill was split, creating a narrow valley with high, confining walls; fifteen meters wide, it is the perfect ambush spot. The divide acts as a natural wind tunnel, and the gusts of air disperse the scent of any predators. Unwise to trap, the tuskers barrel on ahead recklessly, thinking only of escaping the predator behind, ignorant of the danger above.

A black and pink blur swoops in from above, its path a deadly arrow aimed at the alpha tusker's neck. On their way to the ground, Crona professionally, dispassionately extends a clawed hand and rakes it through the flesh under the alpha's chin. Blood stains the rocks of the valley and the alpha crashes, its front legs giving out from the shock of a fatal wound.

Without the influence of their leader, the pack loses all cohesion and falls to chaos; many beasts turn to flee in the opposite direction and just as many charge on ahead, past the warm corpse of their alpha. One stops and sniffs at the slain leader, then rests its head on the other's heaving haunches.

Before any tusker can escape the bottleneck, Crona returns to action, spinning in a deadly dance of tooth and claw. They dig into the most vulnerable flesh available, slitting necks and slicing bellies, dispatching each beast with terrifying efficiency and enrapturing grace. They spin and leap like a professional dancer, elegant and purposeful as they quickly reduce the herd to the half dozen beasts who were able to run past Maka as she watches Crona's dance of death.

Too soon, it ends and all is quiet. Over a dozen dead tuskers line the valley floor, each slowly dying the ground red with blood and gore. Crona stands in the middle of the carnage. Their chestnut fur is matted and dripping, their hair much the same. The only part of them that isn't bloodstained is their robe, and Maka cant tell if that's because the material is too dark to show the blood that soaks it or if it repelled the gore. Crona's breath is ragged; they exerted themself perhaps a bit too much on this hunt? On previous, similar outings, they seemed to be untiring, but this was their largest hunt together; perhaps they can only keep up that speed for so long, and are only now showing Maka their limit?  
Maka's observations and guesses cease when she sees Crona clutch their side and wince. They're injured?! Did one of the tuskers land a lucky blow? Did Crona get careless? Regardless of how it happened, it did. Maka moves, approaching Crona with the intent to help, and they flinch. She slows, gentling her pace.  
"Let me see," She says as she approaches, her hand outstretched. Crona's eyes go wide with fright, like a wounded, cornered animal ready to lash out. She can see their muscles tense, their breath catch, nostrils flare to capture her scent. It takes all they have to not lash out in fear as she sidles her way to their side. The pair's eyes never leave the other's: Crona's wide and fearful, Maka's gentle and caring.  
Maka's hand lightly touches Crona's, and they allow her to remove theirs and inspect their wound. As light as she can, she parts the split fabric and exposes the wound to light and air.  
Honestly, it doesn't look that bad.  
It seems one of the tusker's infamous tusks grazed Crona's abdomen. The wound is a few centimeters long and drips rich maroon blood. Maka sighs in relief and removes her hand.  
"Okay. It doesn't look that bad, but you need stitches. Can you sit for me?"  
Crona stares at her numbly. They're visibly shivering but Maka can tell They're trying to suppress the jerky movements. Did they not hear her?  
"Crona?" She looks deeply into their eyes, sifting through the fear in search of understanding. "Please? Can you sit for me?"  
A long moment passes before they make known the existence of operational mental faculties. They nod, then turn to look for a seat: Though she notices they keep Maka in their periphery at all times. They sit on the haunch of a tusker body, avoiding the blood that covers this one's front. They frown up at Maka, their eyebrows pinching together.  
Maka sets down her backpack and takes out a comprehensive first aid kit. Stein instilled certain priorities in her. From her kit, she takes out a needle and thread, disinfectant, gauze, and Centrus brand sticky goop, then shuts the box. Supplies in hand, she inspects Crona's wound again.  
"This is going to sting. I have to disinfect the wound. Okay?"  
She waits for them to nod their consent before pressing her alcohol soaked gauze to the scratch. As expected, they flinch. Maka wipes away the already-crusting blood from around the opening, then drops the cloth. It gathers clots of bloody mud as she shakes the tube of Centrus brand sticky goop. After unscrewing the cap, she drips it into the wound, then presses the two sides together, letting the goop do its thing. Crona grimaces uncomfortably as the cold, thick liquid covers their insides.  
"That wasn't so bad, right?"  
Crona weakly returns Maka's smile, grinning to not be excluded rather than because of any relief. They're still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Maka to dig her finger into their wound and laugh as they squirm. When she backs away without as much as a mean word, they don't know what to do.  
The pair work in relative silence as they tie up their kills to drag them back to the house, as has been their norm for the last year.

"Experiment rn-0138a, b, c, and d. Further reduction in dragon fire oil should prolong the life of the subject while retaining lethality. Previous serums have proven too volatile, resulting in the premature expiration of the test subject."  
Maka's hand is a blur, scrawling ink onto paper, recording Steins log as he prepares for the experiment proper, drawing gray liquid into a syringe from a vial, graciously and dramatically provided by Medusa’s snake, one of over a dozen currently moving about the lab or on standby, waiting for their mistress’s next command.

"Maka, if you would?"  
She sets down her pen - a fancy, elegant fountain pen on loan from Medusa, a stark improvement over Stein's rustic quills - and takes the syringe from her master. With the same care as the previous 137 times, she approaches the line of cage containing the current test subjects: Wild rats procured by one of Medusa's many snakes. Maka still isn't sure whether the snakes are trained, magically controlled, or a part of the witch, but none of her theories are any less concerning than the last.  
The first rat, a small one with a mottled coat of white and grey, cowers in the corner of its cage, terrified. It has no doubt guessed the fate of the hundreds taken before it, and knows that it faces the same impossible challenge to its continued survival. It squeaks in fear as Maka reaches for it with one of her smaller tentacles, and tries to bite her as she holds it still, but, like all before it, its death was written by the fates as soon as it was caged.  
With the test subject effectively restrained, Maka chooses out a soft patch of flesh and plunges the syringe into the beast. She depresses the plunger, pushing the goop into its flesh. She can taste the moment it surrenders to its fate, when it realizes all hope is lost. Its fear doesn't abate, but it stills, ready to be consumed by a predator, as is the natural response of hopeless prey.  
Unfortunately, this is not nature; this is science. Nothing will be consuming this animal: At least not in a conventional sense; instead, Maka removes the syringe, releases the rat from her grip, and closes the cage door, sealing it from the outside world for her, the doctor, and the witch's safety. She repeats the process with the three other subjects.  
All seems well for a long, long moment. Seconds tic by, turning into minutes. One by one, the rats unfreeze and inspect themselves, not believing in their continued survival. The rats look around. C and d scratch at the injection site. The rats congregate at the walls separating their habitats in a pathetic show of solidarity.  
Seconds become minutes become one, two, three hours, all the while Maka is recording relevant data, as narrated by Stein and, occasionally, Medusa; the older woman is less of a talker in the lab, Maka has noticed. In general, the rats behave normally for being in such an environment: Curious, bored, and tired.  
Before the third hour can pass into the fourth, their behaviours change, starting with subject a, quickly followed by c, then d, then b. A cacophony of squeaks sound from the row of cages, desperate accelerando in hand with terrified crescendo. D retreats to the furthest corner of its cage, but a, b, and c begin jerky, panicked dances of prey nearing a predators jaws. Its as if they sense an attack, but cannot find it: Medusa says as much, at least.  
Suddenly, simultaneously, all of their behaviors become more aggressive. Instead of hiding or trying to be a difficult target, all four subjects try to claw and bite their ways out of their cages.  
"Subjects showing signs of distress and fear. Subjects' attempts to escape its entrapment grow more violent and self destructive: Natural limitations on strength seem to be degrading over time," Stein says, Maka's pen rushing to stay current with his observations. Its true, what the alchemist says; the rats have been scratching and gnawing and gnashing with more force than would normally be possible. Bits of tooth and claw are breaking off against the tempered glass. The beasts' struggles aren't fully in vain though, as scratches and tooth marks appear in the tempered panes between cages. Subjects c and d are throwing themselves at the same, opposite points of the divider, trying to get at each other. Maka silently wonders if they'll break the cage.  
"The subject is showing signs of enhanced strength and decreased sense of self preservation. If this trend continues, a stronger containment unit will be necessary for future testing."  
Abruptly, subject a ceases its escape attempts and its voice temporarily drops out of the painful choir. With its little chest heaving, it gulps down air, as if having a panic attack, before letting loose an impossibly loud, prolonged, single-tone scream of agony, so loud it forces a solo verse of pain, so high pitch that it resembles tinnitus in all but volume: In that, the squeaky scream eclipses the condition a hundred times over. If Maka hadn't experienced this a few dozen times over the more recent experiments, she would cover her ears in painful surprise; as is, it hurts like an expected fire alarm that one has gotten too used to from near weekly fire drills and can no longer be bothered to cover their ears.  
The other rats soon join in the new song of pain and death and terror.  
"Subjects are approaching final stages of experiment." Stein's voice is ever so slightly louder than normal, while otherwise retaining his typical bored monotone. "Scream is between 100 and 107 decibels inside containment unit, and 40 decibels outside containment unit. This exceeds natural limitations of rat vocal chords by a substantial degree: Enough to damage human auditory organs."  
The breathless, squeaky scream continues for nearly three minutes before ending in tandem. All is quiet except the scribble of pen on paper as Maka records the duration of the scream.  
A bulge appears on subject C's lower back, disappearing just as fast. If the group were not looking for such a growth, Maka believes they would not have noticed its appearance. Another growth appears, this time bulging from subject B's front left shoulder, nearly three centimeters in diameter, and disappears just as quickly as the other. There is a pregnant moment as the witch and alchemist intently watch the rats for more growths, dangerous, giddy excitement shining in both of their eyes, before b, c and d collapse onto their sides, dull eyed and still: Dead.  
All attention is on subject a as the rat's body seemingly pulls extra mass from the void, growing slightly bigger and more deformed with each tumorous pulse. After the fifth growth sinks back into its body, slower than the ones before it, the rat collapses: As dead as its peers.  
Medusa makes an annoyed click with her tongue and Stein sighs, disappointed. The experiment had been going so well; or at least, Maka thought so. She still isn't quite sure what the goal of the RAGNAROK serum is, despite the six years shes spent in the lab beside Stein and Medusa; all she knows is that it is meant to be a biological weapon of some sort, designed to spread violently and fatally.  
Stein rattles off some numbers and conclusions, and Maka records his words faithfully. She flips to a new, unblemished page before he can speak again, anticipating the beginning of the next experiment.  
"Experiment rn-0139: A further reduction in dragon fire oil to prevent premature expiration of test subject. Maka, if you would?"  
She takes the next syringe from him and gathers a new set of rats from the rat room, ready to do this again and again, until they get it right. 

Fortunately, in spite of the ever-present wait between the end of cooking and the beginning of dining, the food stays warm under metal domes. The masters always keep them waiting, but neither she nor Crona complain; after all, homunculi exist to serve, even if They're mostly unappreciated and taken for granted. It would be nice to receive a simple ‘thank you’ or a place at the table, but what can she do?  
Stein, as always, arrives first. He takes his seat with little fanfare and waits for the lady of the house to arrive, unscrewing the cap to his flask to take a swig. Medusa doesn't leave them waiting for much longer, as if Steins arrival at the table started a countdown timer for Medusa's arrival.  
Her barefoot approach is as silent as ever. She appears in the doorway, posing confidently, commanding the room's attention with her presence. As she saunters to her place at the table, Maka takes in her dress of the night. Though there have been nearly 10,000 dinners eaten together, and Medusa has worn a different dress to each meal, dressing as if she were going to a party, or to meet royalty: Always classy and flattering, and usually a little bit slutty. To be fair though, it would be hard for her to wear something that isn’t flattering; though Maka quickly learned to not voice such thoughts, Medusa is absolutely stunning.  
Tonight's outfit dips its toe into the slutty pool: A deep blue, strapless bodycon dress that ends less than halfway down her thighs. The deep neckline dips almost to her belly button and does little to cover her gravity-defying breasts, showing off all cleavage imaginable. She isn’t sure how the dress is able to stay on her body, but Maka would be surprised if there wasn’t a touch of magic involved.  
Maka tears her lustful eyes from the sight before she can be called out for staring inappropriately. In her earlier time here, she learned a valuable lesson about not looking for too long.  
Stein, however, has no such qualms and drinks in the view, letting his eyes rake over Medusa's form, from her toned, smooth legs to her slender, tattooed arms.  
The woman revels in his ogling with a confident smirk. She knows how sexy she is; she can practically smell Stein's desire.  
She takes her seat at the table, opposite of Stein, and the homunculi take their cue to start serving. As Maka sets out bowls of soup, Crona presents tonight's wine for tasting and, after getting permission, pours a glass for each of the masters.  
The masters chat as they eat, taking their time and enjoying the sustenance, letting their slaves take away and replace dishes. While not actively working, Maka stands off to the side, watching, waiting, anticipating the needs of their creators in hopes of creating a perfect dining experience, so as to avoid disappointment and punishment. Crona does their part to add to the ambiance of the meal with a hauntingly soft and slow violin performance, providing background noise to fill the holes in conversation.  
Eventually, the final piece of cobbler is eaten and the meal concluded. As the masters stand to leave, Maka takes away the dessert plates, placing them on the serving carriage to be later taken away and cleaned. Crona helps her after filling Medusa's wine glass to go. When the footsteps of the masters fade into the distance, the homunculi sigh in relief. The masters' meals are always so stressful, but now that the formalities are over, the fun part can begin!  
Maka cleans the dining room as Crona drops off the tablecloth with the other laundry, then the two reconvene in the kitchen for their meal. By the time Maka arrives, Crona has set the table and is pouring them each a glass of Medusa's wine; the witch keeps too close of a watch on the wine reserves for them to risk stealing a bottle every night, but every once in a while should be fine. At least, they haven't been caught yet, so that's nice.  
Crona glances up and smiles at Maka through their bangs as she enters. As the two finish preparations for their own meal, they talk. When Maka takes her first bite, she moans in delight and praises Crona for their work with the meat dish. Crona blushes as they play down their achievement, and Maka isn't having it. Shes going to make sure they understand exactly how much she appreciates their effort and skill. She talks about how crappy her cooking used to be and how much it has improved since she started cooking with Crona. When they run out of denials, she lets the subject drop, assured that she got through to them. They compliment her on other areas of work, like plumbing and magilectrical work. She accidentally stops paying attention to their words as she gets lost in their eyes, letting the sound of their voice wash over her without sticking.  
They call out to her, breaking her from her reverie, and she embarrassingly drinks her wine as she thinks of an excuse. Crona doesn't press though; lord knows they've gotten distracted looking at Maka plenty of times before. They just offer to refill her glass, which she accepts and takes another sip.  
Conversation dies for a bit. Crona isn't sure what to say that wont be pushing Maka. Maka tries to think of something to say, but is caught up in the confusing vortex of her feelings for Crona. They're genuine and kind in a way shes sure she's never experienced; everyone is always playing games a dozen layers deep and she struggles to stay ahead, but with them, she can relax and just be. The pair eventually get back into conversation, but nothing of import is said until they have to break down the table and get back to their chores.  
Crona gets to the dishes and Maka leaves to attend to the masters: Not that They're likely to be receptive to her interruption of their nightly activities. 

The experiments have moved deeper into the laboratory since they began human testing. The setup of this room is much the same as the previous one, except with much larger cages for the much larger mammals. One such larger mammal is in one such larger cage, begging for his life, though his pleas don't make it through the soundproof material. Poor thing doesn't know that hes already dead: had been since Crona and Maka picked him up off the street last week; there is no hope of him leaving here alive. There has been no hope of survival since Maka injected him with RAGNAROK three days prior.  
At the sight of the return of his captors, tears fall from his pale green eyes. He knows his fate, though this doesn’t stop him from begging.  
"Subject 413. Human. Injection in left forearm. Symptoms remain dormant into the 69th hour." Stein sounds resigned. The decades long trials of RAGNAROK have worn down the patience of all parties involved. The satisfaction from the experiment's progress have begunto lag behind the drain of a long term, singular focus.  
"Is this one a failure too? I told you that natives of the region are resistant to these sorts of things, but did you listen? No." Medusa's voice is cold and mean.  
"And I told you: We have to have thorough data so we can create the best strain of virus for all people," He snaps back.  
"There's being thorough, and there's wasting time testing every single little change. We know this version isn't what we need so, pray tell, why are we testing it?"  
Even Medusa, usually the poster girl for calm, collected, and cunning has been lashing out at Stein. If RAGNAROK weren't the entire reason for their union, Maka is sure both of them would have temporarily shelved the project by now. But it is, so they haven't.  
"You may be more concerned with the results, but knowing why is just as important. We’ve been over this before."

“What we’ve ‘been over’ is that we have a goal and your constant need for insipid tangents of experimentation is keeping us from it.”  
It is times like these that Maka is glad to be just an assistant, not expected or allowed to contribute to the conversation. The last thing this lab needs is another incendiary personality. She can just sit back, follow instructions, and let those two hiss and spit at each other. After all, its not like she has any personal investment in the project; she finds the work outside of the lab more fulfilling and enjoyable.

Crona isn't used to such periods of stillness. They never get the time to sit and listen to the songbirds, the gentle brush of leaf against leaf in the wind, the scratching of arboreal creatures scampering across tree bark, the gentle gurgling of water streaming against rocks and into a pond. Before Maka, they don't think they ever noticed that flowers have a smell, or felt the tiny, tickly feet of a butterfly on their finger pad. Maka isn't the first homunculus Crona has worked with, but she is the first homunculus they've worked beside of, rather than under: The first to treat them like an equal rather than an underling to shove work onto. They still don't understand why she is so nice to them, but they don't have to understand to feel grateful. Usually, Crona's workload increases when Medusa takes on a lab partner, as they are almost single handedly providing for four mouths instead of two, and they end up with less than their already nonexistent amount of free time; Maka, instead, decided to share burdens with them, even going as far as to create a chore chart so they can evenly divide the labor; she works beside them when possible, which speeds up all of their chores together somehow, as if together they are greater than their sum. She is really a spectacular person.  
Its because of her that They're able to enjoy the nice day today, surrounded by nature, relaxing without a duty putting pressure on them. Medusa requested fish for tonight's dinner, and when Crona brought Maka to their usual fishing spot and showed her their usual method -dipping their tail in the water until something bites, then yanking it into the air to catch - she laughed and offered to take care of it herself. At first, Crona worried that she wouldn't be able to handle gathering enough to sate Medusa's voracious appetite, but when she expertly dove under the surface of the water, net trailing behind her, Crona was reassured; her form was perfect and enrapturing, almost magical, as if the water is her home and she was only visiting the surface world. She disappeared from sight within moments, going deeper than their vision can penetrate.  
When she didn't immediately reappear, they decided to gather herbs and spices from the forest to supplement tonight's meal. When they returned from that and Maka still hadn't surfaced, they decided to sit back and relax, though this was less of a decision and more of a result of a lack of anything else to do. It has been nice. Its been over an hour since then: An hour free of cares and duties.  
They must have dozed off sometime during then, lulled to sleep by the soothing orchestra of nature, because They're woken by a great splash. Their eyes open just in time to see a bulging net of fish land on the opposite side of the pond. The net must weigh more than five times as much as them, as, when it impacts the ground, it sends up a veritable geyser of mud around it. Crona's relief at being far away from the mud spurt is interrupted, however, by the next thing to breach.  
More powerful than a dolphin leaping past the ocean's surface, more elegant than a red-tailed hawk bursting through foliage, Maka surfaces with enough speed to free herself fully from the water's grip, propelling herself into the air. Crona would swear that time itself slowed for her, letting the countless droplets and streams of water that follow her in a vain attempt to cling to her majesty sparkle in the sunlight. Crona can see her muscles rippling beneath her skin, lithe and powerful, and the light makes the exposed expanses of her back, shoulders, legs, glisten like prismatic shards of glass: As beautiful as it is dangerous. Blonde hair runs damp down her back, darkened by the heaviness of water; Crona would call it dirty blonde if they could begin to conceptualize calling anything about the gorgeous woman before them "Dirty."  
Too soon, time restarts its flow and conspires with gravity to pull Maka down from her angelic, midair perch. She lands hands- and head-first in a professional backwards dive. Crona watches as she swims to the shore. To them.  
When Maka once again stands on dry land, she wrings out her hair, freeing it from much of the supplemental water weight. Crona cant help but follow a rivulet of water that streams out from her neck-gills and down: Past her collarbone, between her breasts, over the gills on her ribs, and over her toned abs. Crona tears their eyes away before they can follow it further, embarrassed at the strange way their stomach flips in... Excitement? They aren't sure what that feeling is, but its at least pleasant.  
She smiles brightly, and when they realize her attention is directed at them, a mild, self-conscious panic overtakes them. They stand and brush off any stray bits of dirt or grass that may cling to their clothes, trying to look presentable without truly understanding why. they've been doing weird things like that a lot, recently, and, like with most things they do, they try not to think too deeply on why: An abundance of introspection only leads to pain. They feel something for Maka, that much they know, but They're unsure how to label it, having never felt anything like it before. Sometimes, she makes them feel warm and giddy inside, while at other times she somehow inspires a calmness that runs through their entire being, silencing the twin voices of apathy and anxiety that usually run rampant through their mind. They wish that they could stay with her forever, that all of their days could be like this, relaxing and happy by Maka's side.

Its a shame that that wish will never be more than just that: An idle hope doomed before its inception. Thought a fruitless endeavor, they resolve to savor the remaining time they have with Maka. They’d do anything to hold onto this warmth for just a little longer, but that’s impossible.

Unless…

The stench of rot mixes unpleasantly with the sterility of bleach as Maka cleans up yet another cage. With trusty mop and bucket, she scrubs the blackened gore off the floor and walls. Another step to success, she supposes, though it seems like the closer RAGNAROK comes to completion, the more chunks of semi-liquid flesh she has to dispose of. It sucks. Each cage takes over an hour of cleaning, and there are rows of them inhabited by infected humans or their decomposing, unnatural remains.  
At least this will be over soon. As RAGNAROK comes closer and closer to being finished, Maka's freedom from this particular stinky torture approaches too.  
Following that thought is another, more sad one: What will happen when RAGNAROK is finished? She knows it will be released and Stein will study its effects on international politics, and she'll be expected to assist, but what of Medusa? And more importantly, what of Crona? Will they continue working together? Will Maka still have chances to see Crona? She hopes so, but somehow doubts it; Stein isn't much for sentimentality; if something doesn't serve his thirst for knowledge, he discards it. Medusa seems to be the same but with different desires.  
Neither of them would be excited to allow Crona and Maka to spend time together just because the homunculi wanted to.  
Maybe the masters will continue working together after this project? They seem to enjoy each others company in and outside the laboratory, going so far as to have almost nightly dinners and "Meetings." That would be the best scenario in Maka's opinion: A dramaless continuation of the status quo.  
As she squeezes her dreadful mop into the half full bucket, she catches the reflection of her forlorn, distantly sad, hopeful face. What she wants is hardly ever what she gets; why should this be any different?  
Still, she hopes.

This is a terrible idea. Its an absolutely horrible, stupid, naive idea and they know this for fact. They shouldn't be here in the lab without explicit permission from their mistress, but for what they've set out to do, Crona knows Medusa would never allow it. Therefore, they have to be sneaky. Silent. Unnoticeable.

That shouldn't be too hard, they try to convince themself. After all, that's what They're usually doing on any typical day, going out of their way to move silently and not attract the attention of their housemates. Though their internal assurances do little to calm their frazzled mind, their feet fall without noise as they make their way deeper into the lab.

They stop to peruse a shelf, scanning it for a jar of ground fae teeth. No containers glow with the signature, soft iridescence of the rare alchemical ingredient, so they move on, ignoring the temptation to grab another essential ingredient. They mostly know what ingredients their mistress and master use in RAGNAROK's creation thanks to Maka, but it wouldn't do for them to go through all the trouble of sneaking in here and destroying something that could be easily replaced. No, it has to be the fae teeth: Expensive, impossible to synthesize, and incredibly difficult to obtain. The portal to the realm of the fair folk opens only once every 13 years, so depleting this supply should hopefully put RAGNAROK on hiatus for another 4 years.

Only 4 years...

To a long lived being such as a homunculus, 4 years is a negligible amount of time; they've lived 4 years hundreds of times over now. Is the risk of going against their mistress really worth such a short extension? Is it worth risking Medusa's cold wrath just for another short decade like this?

They know the answer before they can finish questioning themself again. If it weren't worth it, they wouldn't be here, picking through shelf after shelf of frankly an absurd variety of softly glowing supplies. Seriously, why is it that so many magichemical supplies glow? They had never been able to figure that one out.

Fire lilies, minnow eyes, deep water sand, air's breath, drake venom: Their eyes rove over the jars without recognizing any of the contents' names; They're a house homunculus, not a lab homunculus; the only time they ever interacted with these supplies is when they did the shopping, and at that stage the ingredients were whole: Not ground or mixed or otherwise prepared. Going off of Maka's description of ground fae teeth though, none of these are it.

So with a sigh, they move on to the next group of jars, steadily, fearfully moving deeper into their mother's domain. 

Everything hurts. It feels like Maka’s insides are doing their best to become her outsides, unable to sit easy in their new arrangement. With RAGNAROK's progress being halted by an unforeseen lack of supplies, Stein has diverted extra time to Maka’s "maintenance," replacing some of her older parts and making sure shes healthy, from her brain to her spleen. Her new large intestine squirms in her belly like a snake in a burlap sack. The surgeries and checkups are painful, drawn out, and invasive, more often than not involving her being literally taken apart before being put back together.  
So, she is currently lying face down in bed, groaning in miserable pain as she curses the way her muscles cramp and tear. She writhes in her pile of misery, interrupted eventually by a hand on her calf. She looks up.  
Crona stands at her side with a steaming mug.  
"I brought you some hot chocolate. How are you feeling?" They ask.  
She lets out a groan in response. They frown in empathetic solidarity. Their hand on her leg squeezes and releases, moving up and down as it does. It feels nice.  
"Can i help? Anything you want, just ask."

"If it’s not too much trouble, could you give me a massage?"  
"Of course," they say with an indulgent smile.  
Their kneading becomes more intentional. They set the mug down on the bedside table and bring their second hand to the same leg. The residual warmth of the hot chocolate pushes into her tense muscles. They relax under Crona's ministrations and Maka lets out a sigh.  
As their hands climb higher, she lets herself be taken by the sensation, just to get her mind off the constant pain of her stomach tearing itself apart to accommodate new residents. It almost works.  
When Crona's hands reach her knee, they switch legs, doing their best to keep her balanced, even though shed very much like them to keep going upward. When they reach her knee again, she gets her wish as they move in on her thigh. Though she would injure anyone who would say it, shes gotten a bit doughy. Crona kneads, pushing and pulling, grabbing and letting go, and Maka lets out a sigh as she feels her muscles unspool and turn to jelly.  
Scared to move too close, Crona moves to her back, putting their skilled hands to the task of rearranging her spine.  
The massage lasts for what feels like forever: An eternity of luxury and attention. She isn't used to the feeling of being important. Its nice.  
Actually, they massaged her back first, then moved to thighs. The two talk as Crona massages and Maka drinks her coco.  
"You really don't have to do all this fir me, Crona."  
"I know. I want to."  
"Why"  
"At first, it was because i didn't want to make you mad, but you never asked me for anything. So, i want to because you appreciate what i do. You're different than the others. You've treated me with respect and kindness. I want to pay that back while i can."  
"What do you mean, while you can?"  
"Oh! Um, i don't, well, just that, RAGNAROK is almost done, right?"  
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I'll be gone forever. I'm sure we can find a way to keep in touch."  
Crona goes quiet and their hands still.  
"Right? I can teach you to read and write, so we could send letters and stay friends, even if we aren't living together anymore, and who knows? Maybe Stein and Medusa will work together again in the future and we'll get a chance to be like this again."  
Crona, quietly, "I doubt it"  
"Oh. You don't want to?" Her disappointment in her voice is obvious.

"No! I mean, yes! That, i want to." Their eyes are desperate and pleading, but for what, she doesn't know.  
"Then whats the problem?  
"I... Cant tell you."  
"What do you mean?" Maka is beginning to worry. It must be something big, for them to keep a secret so guarded.  
"I mean i can’t tell you"  
"Why?!"  
"Because i want to be your friend! I want to enjoy the time we have left before she ruins it and-!"  
"Crona. Look at me. Whatever you tell me, it wont change how i feel about you, i promise."  
"You cant know that."  
"I do. Whatever it is, we can work it out, just please, talk to me Crona."  
A long pause.  
"My name... I... I don't have a name."  
"What do you mean? Its Crona, isn't it?"  
"No. Not really. Lady Medusa, she never gave it to me. She didn't call me anything except "You" Until she had to. I usually just, just go by her previous partner's name, if i like it."  
"Previous partner?"  
"Stein… he isn't her first. He wont be her last. Medusa isn't really much of a scientist, to be honest. Most of her work is stolen from her old lab partners when she... when she kills them.”

They tense up, as if expecting a blow, but violence against Crona is the last thing on Maka's mind. Instead, it races with fears for her master and herself. Medusa teamed up with Stein to make RAGNAROK, then gut him when the project is done? Can he survive such a betrayal? What will happen to her if Medusa succeeds? What will happen to Crona if she doesn't? Regardless of all of that, her duty reigns supreme and it is obvious what she must do, no matter how she feels about it.  
She has to warn Stein.

"I have to warn Stein."  
"No! You cant!"  
"I have to. Hes in danger."  
"Please, Maka, you cant. If Medusa finds out i told you, she'll... Please. I don't want to go back to that."  
Maka is conflicted. On one hand, Crona is her best friend, the first homunculus shes ever met, the only one she can see herself in, her mirror and equal. Shes come to appreciate and, dare she say, rely on them in the last decade. They're always there when she needs them: Help, conversation, ideas, etc. they've not let her down before.  
But. Stein is her master, her creator. A homunculus should strive to center their masters needs fully, to prioritize them above all else. Hes the one who gave her life. She owes him everything.  
Really, the choice isn't even a choice at all. It is something she has to do, despite Crona's sad, pleading, desperate eyes, despite the real fear she can feel through their clasped hands.  
"I have to. Hes my master." Crona's face falls. They look resigned to their assumed doom. "I'm sure i can convince him to take you in too, after this is settled. Hes not one to allow waste, and you've definitely proven to be useful. Just give me a chance to talk to him."  
Crona releases her hand and says nothing. They move to their bed and curl up, facing away from her. She wants to comfort them, but she cant; she has to warn her master. It is her duty as his homunculus to put his safety above her feelings, so she shoves down the shittiness she feels in her chest as she looks at Crona's curled form.  
She leaves with a final glance, hoping and failing to catch a final glimpse of their face.

Maka walks down the hall briskly and with purpose, making her way to Steins bedroom as fast as she can without running; it wouldn't do to attract the unwanted attention of their hostess, after all. The last thing she needs is to be questioned, caught off guard before she can warn Stein.  
Luckily, fate allows her passage and she arrives undisturbed. With a swift knock she signals her intent and opens the door. Stein sits at his writing desk, writing. He looks up at her, then back down to his work.  
"Mast-"  
Maka is cut off by a raised finger that desires another moment of quiet. She holds her tongue. The sound of a pen scratching paper fills the room. Maka itches to move and do something to burn off the nervous energy building in her. Stein doesn't seem to notice, just casually, leisurely finishing his writing. When he finally puts down his pen, she feels fit to burst.  
"Now. What is so important that you've decided to bother me in my study?" He asks.  
"Its lady Medusa." Steins eyes narrow. "Crona just told me that shes going to betray you when RAGNAROK is done. Shes going to ki-!"  
Before she can finish her warning, Stein is on his feet. He slams her against the closed door, one arm across her throat, his other hand gripping hard her cheeks. His hands are rough, uncaring. He leans in close to his through gritted teeth.  
"Are you stupid?" He hisses through gritted teeth. She tries to shake her head in response, but his grip is too tight. "Did you really think i don't her plans? Did you think i hadn't planned for this? Do you think so little of me?"  
His voice is filled with malice and anger. Maka tries to answer, but his grip tightens on her face and neck when she lets out a sputtering start to a word. Dark spots are forming in her vision and she feels lightheaded.  
"Shut. Up! It isn't safe to talk. She has eyes and ears everywhere, haven't you noticed? Why do i even ask, of course you haven't. Stupid girl."  
He sighs and loosens his grip on her throat, letting her take in a much needed breath with which she speaks her first struggling word.  
"I- i didn't-"  
Shes cut off with another rough shove. Her neck is no doubt going to be covered in bruises tomorrow. Stein levels a cold glare at her.  
"It seems," he says dispassionately, "that you've been abusing your speaking privileges."

Maka's eyes go wide, not liking where she knows this line of thought goes. "I'll have to do something about that."  
He releases her throat but keeps one hand on her chin, angling it upward. Terrified, shed like to fight back, but she knows she doesn't stand a chance like this. Maybe under different circumstances she could beat Stein in combat, but that isn't something she, as his homunculus, should think about. She deserves this, doesn’t she? She thought Stein dumb and as unaware as she, and this is her punishment.

Stein reaches into his lab coat pocket and pulls out a loose roll of cloth, which unravels into a carrier for surgical supplies. When he pulls out a scalpel, Maka closes her eyes in an attempt to block out the harsh reality that is closing in on her. Dizziness takes her when she feels him drag his knife through her esophagus, and no matter how hard she tries she cant get her breath back. Though her rib-based gills to their best to push out the liquid in her lungs, there is always more blood to fill them. Her vision darkens as her brain is robbed of oxygen, unable to pull breath from the blood, but she is kept awake by the pain of Stien’s fingers spreading open her esophagus. The pain reaches a crescendo when his knife severs her vocal cords.

Maka’s final thoughts are of fear: of Stein’s current impromptu surgery, of what Maka’s body will be once the mutilation is done, of whether she’ll survive the night under the knife, of whether she’ll ever again have a night as pleasant as this - current situation nonwithstanding, of course. Crona had been so unerringly kind to her, going as far as to spoil her with massages and cocoa, and she betrayed them out of unreturned loyalty to her master. She feels the merciful grip of unconsciousness drag her under the surface and relief is found in oblivion.

At first, Crona was relieved. Maka and Stein were still here and routine had continued. But things were not well; even they could tell as much. There was a tension in the air that wasn’t present before. Since she came back from warning Stein, Maka had become distant and refused to talk to them - refused to talk at all, in fact. She still did her chores and helped in the lab, but lacked the passion or the friendliness of earlier.

This isn’t what Crona wanted, not at all. When they destroyed the fae teeth and delayed RAGNAROK, they had expected things to continue as they were: they and Maka spending time together on hunts and during chores. They were naive. Of course Maka would pull the truth out of them and of course she would stand beside her master. Maka was too perfect to betray her creator. It should have been obvious that she would put more stock into her lifelong servitude than in her companionship with another homunculus; Stein was her whole world; he was literally what she lived for. Crona is just a random person she was forced to work with.

Even so, they can’t bring themself to regret their sabotage. It may not have worked out how they had foolishly hoped, but they do still get to spend more time with Maka, even if it’s filled with unspoken wishes and words. Even now, while she no doubt plans her retaliation against Medusa and them, her presence is more comforting and reassuring than anything else they could remember. Medusa had always, as far back as they could remember, been cold and manipulative. Each of her previous prey had always trampled Crona underfoot, pushing aside Crona’s comfort and desires to make room for their own.

So, even though things are different and painful now, they don’t regret extending Maka’s life. They just wish they could somehow enjoy her presence even longer, somehow keep her in their life past Medusa’s machinations and Stein’s retaliation. They won’t hold their breath though.

Maka feels fit to burst.

Every day, her frustration grew, but she was unable to do anything with it. Before, she could complain to Crona about the stressful going-ons in the lab and they would bear it kindly, offering calming words and whatever help they could think of. Now though? Now that’s impossible. Even if she wanted to - and she isn’t sure she does - she couldn’t speak a word. Everything seemed so simple before they told her Medusa’s plans, before she tried to warn Stein, before she was silenced for her impetuousness.

She knows she shouldn’t have thought so little of Stein as to assume he hadn’t already known of Medusa’s schemes, but did half of a warning deserve such a punishment as this? She knows she should be grateful to Stein for keeping her around after she almost cost him _his_ schemes, but it just isn’t fair: none of it. Why did Medusa and Stein have to so loftily plan backstabbings when they could just as easily - if not more-so - cooperate? Why do their homunculi have to be caught up in this game of thrones? Neither she nor Crona had the choice to participate, dragged in by greater forces above their control. She doesn’t want to be here, playing this dangerous game with her life, cutting ties with her closest friend, working to exterminate a nation for the whims of callous masters.

These are dangerous thoughts that she entertains, diametrically opposed to her duties as a homunculus: to live for and serve her master in all capacities. She shouldn’t even have desires, much less such treasonous ones. This must be the silver lining to being silenced, she supposes. Even if she wanted, she couldn’t make known such seditious thoughts, couldn’t betray her master more than she already has. She feels conflicted, anger and duty fighting inside her like two feral cats.

That isn’t all though. More than her anger at her master, more than her irritation at Medusa’s unreturned scorn, more than her fear of what’s to come, she’s disappointed in herself for how she treated Crona. They trusted her enough to confide in her their mistress’s plan and she spat in their face. She didn’t just endanger her own life and the plans of her master, but the life of her friend. They told her that Medusa would punish them for their loose lips but she cared more about her thankless master than her sweet, kind, dependable friend. Her guts clench and roil darkly when she thinks of that. And now she can’t even apologize, can’t say that she was wrong and they were right, couldn’t tell them how much she appreciates them, how much they mean to her. With the ways things are going, she’s not sure she’ll ever get the chance. She knows that if she doesn’t tell them, she’ll regret it for the rest of her life.

Therefore, when the perfect opportunity presented itself - they stood alone in the kitchen, absently chopping vegetables with a contemplative, guilty expression; they’re obviously lost inside their own thoughts and might not appreciate an interruption - Maka knows what she must do. she steels her nerves and made moves, only to pause indecisively when her eyes meet Crona’s. Too much passes through their gaze for her to understand, but she catches their wariness and caution. For a split second, Maka considers slotting in beside them to help and putting off her apology, but she grinds that cowardly thought into the dirt where it belongs.

“Maka? Is something wrong?”

Upon hearing their hesitant words, the cowardly thought that she thought snuffed pulls her under. She opens her mouth to say something, then closes it awkwardly, regretfully, when nothing comes out. What had been her plan again? She can’t remember why she thought approaching them would be a good idea when she couldn’t even apologize. Fortunately, Crona takes her silence as a prompt to keep speaking, even if their words aren’t what she’d like to hear.

“Its what I said, isn’t it? I get that you’re mad at me, that you probably want nothing to do with me - and who could blame you? I’ve- I lied to you; I let you think we were friends- that we could _be _friends even when I knew everything would end. I _knew_ it would be like this but I… I couldn’t do that again, not this time. Not to you. I’m-”

Maka cuts them off with a rushed hug, more of a tackle than a friendly embrace, and glares up at them. How could they think this is their fault? Maybe it was their confession that sparked the incident, but moves were being made far outside of their control. She wishes she could tell them that she understands.

Crona is confused, not sure what to make of the woman so jealously holding them while her angry eyes try to stab through their skull. She opens her mouth again and Crona braces themself for a verbal lashing, but all that comes out is a puff of air, leaving them even more confused. Maka isn’t one to avoid speaking her mind or to hesitate like this.

“What’s wrong?”

Silence.

“Maka? You can tell me.”

More silence.

“Please, just talk to me. I promise I won’t-”

They’re cut off by a gentle finger pressed against their lips. She tries once more to speak, but all that comes out is a nearly silent, raspy squeak that leaves Maka feeling helpless and ashamed. She pleads with them to understand her despite the barrier between them and, somehow, they do.

“You can’t talk.”

The words are spoken with wonder and understanding washes over them when Maka nods. Maka isn’t mad, hasn’t been giving them the silent treatment; she’s just been unable to talk to them. Crona’s relief at not being the target of Maka’s scorn doesn’t last long, soon replaced with anger.

“Stein did this, didn’t he?”

They know the answer before Maka nods again, but the confirmation still makes their blood boil.

“Why- How could- What is wrong with him?!” Maka is shocked at their angry outburst, having not expected it from her gentle, soft-spoken friend. They don’t notice, too caught up in the injustice. “How could he do that to you? You were helping him and he- he- That bastard! He should be thanking you for telling him not mutilating you! He relies on you for everything, then turns on you for helping him? That- damn him. I swear the next time I see him I’m going to rip him in half and beat him to death with…”

They trail off when they notice the wide-eyed expression on Maka’s face and mistake her awe for fearful concern. They attempt to take back what they said.

“No- I mean- I wouldn’t- I didn’t mean it like that! I won’t actually hurt him, I promise. I mean, Medusa would have my head if he died before RAGNAROK is done, then she’d kill you and I can’t- I couldn’t do that. I won’t kill you, Maka, I swear it.”

Shaky worry taints their pledge. Maka sided with Stein before so why would her feelings have changed in such a short time. They’ve no doubt she’s going to leave to tell Stein what they said as soon as possible. Doubt worms its way in, however, when instead of rushing off to report their weakness, she pulls them tighter and slips her head under their chin. They can feel her breath through the light material of their dress, constant and warm.

While they stew in confused pleasure, Maka has a crisis of loyalty. Pushed against the flat, lithe chest of her friend, she lets the seditious thoughts from earlier return. Sure, Stein gave her life, but he’s used her like a tool - a well taken care of one, but still, in the end, a possession to be used. He’s never made her feel particularly wanted or important, not like Crona. She feels closer to Crona after only a century of companionship than she does to Stein after nearly a millennium of servitude. In their arms, she feels an ease of being that has eluded her for all of her years before, she feels comfortable, at ease, desired, and a host of other things she barely has the words for; they make her feel _good_. It’s such a novel, small thing, but she doesn’t want to live without it, not after having tasted it once. She would do anything to hold onto this feeling, but what can be done? She and Crona are both pawns caught in the elaborate machinations of their masters, with no way to escape the board. They could run, but they know too many secrets to be let go so easily. They could play along, but that would surely result in at least one of their deaths. They could try to deceive the surviving master and keep the loser’s homunculus hidden, but neither Stein nor Medusa are foolish enough to not personally ensure such an obvious loose end survives.

No matter how hard she wracks her brain, she can’t think of a way for them to stay together after their masters’ come to blows. Unless…

The plan is simple. It had to be, as Maka’s only form of communication was an awkward, frustrating game of charades with Crona, who took way more time than Maka would like to parse her flailing. More often than not, Maka wishes she took the time to teach Crona to read, as that would make this whole planning ordeal a great deal easier, but it is what it is. Over time, the two got better at communicating. Maka would try to use signs consistently and Crona would try to remember them. They got better at guessing new ones too. After a while, the pair had a decent and constantly growing lexicon, known only by them. Maybe with more time, they could have figured out a full language and made a complete, brilliant plan, but it would have to do.

They’re out of time. The realm of fae opened up yesterday, granting them access to a fresh supply of teeth, which means RAGNAROK can progress once more and there’s no telling when Medusa or Stein will enact their respective, murderous plans; the homunculi have to act first, before either can gain an advantage. Crona and Maka must rely on surprise and deceit, knowing full well that they have no hope of success if either master discovers their plot before it’s completion.

The plan starts innocently enough, with Maka and Crona continuing with their daily tasks: Crona upstairs and Maka down, helping in the lab. Medusa and Stein are animated, excited to continue their work on RAGNAROK now that they’re able. It seems that plans of betrayal are on hold for now, but Maka knows better than to trust that feeling; Stein was able to keep the wool over her eyes before, but now she knows better. Just because she can’t see the masters’ mutual disdain doesn’t mean she’ll allow herself to feel complacent and safe again. At any moment they could learn the final piece of information they need and turn on the other; she has to strike before that happens.

When she’s absolutely certain she isn’t being watched, she slips pinches of ingredients into tiny pouches hidden beneath her clothing. Her tenure as an alchemist’s homunculus gifted her with an intimate, if spotty, knowledge of magichemical reactions; she’s confident in her ability to mix the solution she requires. The hard part is remaining unnoticed through all of this, which wouldn’t be hard if she only had two sets of eyes to watch out for, but, according to Crona, Medusa’s snakes are tied to her and they share senses. Maka doesn’t want to imagine how overwhelming that amount of sensory input is, but she can’t disregard the danger of such an ability and so she moves with extra caution. When one tentacle moves to grab an ingredient, the others cover it, writhing to obscure it just in case she doesn’t account for a set of eyes.

Her actions go undiscovered - or at least, neither Medusa nor Stein call her out. She won’t be able to mix her takings in such an open space though, so, when she’s lifted the final necessary ingredient, she waits until an appropriate time to excuse herself to the toilet. When she makes it to the upstairs restroom and sees the array of kitchen supplies on the counter, she sighs in relief. Crona’s done their part, bringing and setting up mixing bowls, measuring spoons, glasses: the supplies she needs to do this right. Instead of relieving herself, she hurriedly prepares and mixes the ingredients in her pockets. She has a minute, maybe two, before Stein and Medusa will expect her back in the lab. Her appendages are a blur of blue and white and she soon has a small amount of dark brown liquid in the bottom of a wooden bowl. It would struggle to fill a shot glass, but it should be enough to fulfil its purpose. It has to be. She’s out of time. Any longer and the masters will grow suspicious.

Carefully, she pours the viscous liquid into a small, wooden cup and lids it. When it is tucked securely between her tentacles where they meet, she leaves the small room and makes her way back to the lab. She passes Crona in the hall and they exchange a nod. Time for phase two.

Back in the den of snakes and death, Maka returns to her tasks, following orders, taking notes. Despite the familiarity of mixing RAGNAROK, she sweats. Whether her and Crona’s plan succeeds or not, this will be the last time she mixes together this almost clear, slightly green liquid. When the preliminary mixture is even, she hands it off to a snake to deliver it to Medusa, who takes it without a glance, dumping it in with its other parts, stirring and chanting all the while. The solution darkens slowly as its mixed, until, finally, it’s blacker than the darkest cave. Still, the witch continues to stir and infuse it with her magic. When the spell is complete, she dips a ladle in and pulls some out. The portion of RAGNAROK doesn’t want to be separated from its mass and, instead of dripping like a normal liquid, stretches to the point of absurdity. It splits only when cleaved by a pair of scissors, each part recoiling to join its mass.

She dumps it in a beaker before returning it to Maka. Both are extremely careful to not get any on them. Despite how satisfying it would be to toss it at Medusa and sign her death right now, Maka can’t. Not yet.

Instead of doing anything drastic and unplanned, she takes the glass to the tempered glass cage containing today’s subject, stripped naked and shivering in the corner. She can practically feel the fear rolling off him, same as the ones before him. Faster than he can react, she strikes his leg with a tentacle. He cries out in pain as the serrated tooth leaves a line of blood in its wake and she tosses the RAGNAROK at him. The beaker shatters on impact and the slimy contents spread across his body. When it finds the open wound, it moves as one, pushing inside. The skin bulges as new mass is introduced, then it smooths out. The man is screaming and clawing at his leg where the gunk entered his body in a futile attempt to rip out the invading liquid. Maka retreats as he struggles, closing and locking the cage door, leaving him to his fate. Silently, she prays that he will be the last of his kind.

She takes her place at Stein’s side, grabbing a pen and lab sheet; he talks and she writes, paying only enough attention to accurately record his words. Most of her focus is on the test subject. She waits for the right moment to act. An hour passes while she faithfully drags pen on paper. The subject has gone from trying to tear his leg open to screaming in agony while thrashing violently, as if fighting off a swarm of invisible hornets, screaming all the while. When the first swelling bulge appears on his arm, his scream goes silent, more of a breathless gasp. His thrashing becomes focused as he attacks the new growth. When the second, then the third- fourth- sixth- eighth appears, he stops swinging his limbs to more effectively cry. His entire body is soon covered in huge, grotesque, black boils that pulse without rhythm.

Medusa and Stein move closer to observe, excitedly talking. Maka stays behind them, but is no less enraptured by the sight. Its almost time. Slowly, with subtle undulations, she moves the cup hidden in her tentacles closer to the ends, wrapping it in her largest one to keep it hidden but ready.

The subject’s entire body balloons for a moment before deflating. It does so again, then again and again, the intervals between growing shorter and shorter, the max size growing larger and larger. Stein rattles off some numbers, but Maka doesn’t record them, the pen forgotten and still in her hand. A blot of black ink spreads out from the point where the pen lingers on the page. An ebony rivulet drips down the page and onto her shirt, unnoticed by Maka.

She uncaps the cup in her tentacle and throws its contents at the cage, over the masters’ heads. It hits the glass and immediately begins to sizzle and bubble. Stein and Medusa turn to her, fury evident on their faces for her interruption, but Maka doesn’t spare a glance, her desperate eyes locked onto the rapidly weakening glass and what lays beyond. Fortune seems to smile on her as, two pulses later, before the masters can move away, an explosion of darkness slams into the walls of the cage. Three sides hold, but the front, weakened by her concoction, splits with a deafening crack: loud not by decibel but for what it means. A dribble of liquid runs down the outside of the cage.

Scorn and rage are replaced with unbridled fear. The seal that protects the masters from their creation is broken. As they turn to flee to safety, Medusa makes time for a viscous backhanded slap that sends Maka sprawling; Maka is too busy to dodge, instead watching the liquid swirl and transform from splatterings on walls to a vaguely humanoid shape. The proportions are all wrong: too gangly, with unnatural bends in too many joints on too many limbs. It fixes her with a death glare, pulls back one arm, and swings it. The front wall shatters on impact and a shard digs into Maka’s shoulder.

The pain reminds her of the danger and she turns to book it, following the wise example of the masters. When she reaches the staircase, however, she doesn’t go up toward the safety of the ground floor and the lab’s heavy, airtight door. If Crona was successful - and she has to trust that they were - the entire ground floor should be inaccessible. Instead, she goes down, leaping down half a dozen steps at a time with deadly urgency. She slams into walls to halt her momentum when needed, but does her best to not stop moving.

Finally, she reaches the bottom. The air is dank and stale down here and water covers the floor, rising almost to her knees. An underground river broke through the walls years back and, having almost no use for the rooms this far down, Medusa let it fall into disrepair. Maka searches for the hole in the wall that Crona told her about. Her heart beats hard and wildly when she doesn’t immediately locate it. If the hole isn’t here, she’s doomed. Finally, after far too long for her comfort, she feels water move past her ankle. With a desperate, relieved cry, she throws herself to her hand and knees and probes the opening with her tentacles. One slips in, followed by the others until they’re halfway buried in the rock.

Now, being made of almost pure muscle, octopus tentacles are surprisingly powerful for their size. A giant octopus can lift almost half it’s weight with each tentacle. Maka’s though, are much stronger than a wild octopus’s thanks to Stein’s tinkering.

With a grunt Maka flexes and pulls and the rock wall gives, crumbling around her, splashing water in her face. She hurries to make an opening large enough to squeeze through as there’s no telling whether the RAGNAROK creature went up or downstairs. She hopes it followed the masters, but she has no clue what its behaviour in such an open space will be. If it finds her before she can escape though, she’s dead. She has no illusions about fighting such a monster. She knows that the moment it touches an opening larger than a pore, it will infect her.

Fortune continues to smile on her as the hole grows without interruption, now wide enough to let her force her shoulders through. Her shirt tears as she squeezes through the hole and into the flow of the river.

On the ground floor, things went even more smoothly, if one could believe that. Medusa’s snakes are almost all congregated in the lab, so they don’t have to worry about being spotted - not that that does much for their nerves as, despite their rational mind reminding them that neither master cares about them, they can’t help but suspiciously look over their shoulder every few seconds for an observer. The only living thing they’ve seen has been Maka on her way back to the lab, which is when they started this ordeal

As quickly as they can, they gather every piece of furniture they can move and pile it in front of the laboratory door. Over time, the pile grows obscenely but they dare not stop. Tables, desks, chairs, a refrigerator, beds, shelves, a safe: the pile consumes it all. When they’re satisfied with their work - or rather, when they can’t find the strength to move even one more piece of furniture, they start on the next part of the plan, which is fortunately less labor intensive.

Instead of piling furniture, they’re spreading bundles of what Maka called “force powder” along the front and back entrances, securing them to the walls and ceiling. Each bundle is small enough that they can fit three in each hand, wrapped in cloth, and secured with string. If it weren’t for Maka’s assurance that they would get the job done, they’d doubt their effectiveness; but she says they’re powerful and they trust her.

They aren’t sure if its irony or not, but they do think it is strangely funny that the shopping trip that restarted RAGNAROK allowed them to procure these. If Crona had sullied a different, slightly more mundane ingredient, they would have had to travel to a market on this plane and been unable to buy anything, as neither Maka nor they have any money. But the fae don’t deal in currency, instead bartering with an esoteric system based around sentimentality and attachment. Maka traded all of the personal possessions she’d gathered over the centuries: mostly books, but a couple stones and trinkets. Crona had nothing to contribute, as they weren’t allowed possessions; the closest thing they have to a sentimental object is their robe, and it’s absence would quickly raise questions they couldn’t afford to answer.

As they line the central hall and exterior doorways with the bundles, they keep an eye out for Medusa’s snakes, checking the places they usually hide while watching for trespassers. They spot a couple, but none give them trouble, treating Crona’s presence as a minor nuisance at worst. When the last bundle is in place, they breath a sigh of relief. Phase two is complete and now they just have to wait. In an attempt to relieve some of their nervous tension, they toss the final bundle of force powder between their hands as they let time pass them by. It’s been almost a little over an hour since they passed Maka in the hall; she said to wait 90 minutes before detonating the powder, and that’s what they’ll do.

At least, that’s what they planned to do before a sharp, unexpected pain sweeps their leg out from under them. They cry out as their blood begins to burn and they fall to the ground. A serpentine tassel dangles from their thigh, following Crona’s descent: one of Medusa’s snakes. While normally being bitten by one of her snakes would command their attention, Crona can’t pull their eyes away from the bundle of powder that seems to fall in slow motion. The furry homunculus tries to reach out to catch them but the venom running through their veins must be affecting their nervous system as the culmination of their desperate efforts is little more than a twitch of their shoulder. They can only look on in horror as it hits the ground.

The world goes white and they get the sensation they’re flying. Then, nothing.

Maka struggles to extract herself from the mountainside without falling to her death. The river ended its underground run a hundred meters up a bare rock face. Not the most convenient of locations to be, but she supposes it’s better than ending up in a cave with no light or sense of which way - if any - leads out.

With a painful jolt, she frees her hips from the mountain’s grip. She’s in free fall for a moment, but her right arms quickly find purchase on the rough, cliff wall, halting her momentum. The pull of gravity on her body hurts a bit and, if she had a more traditional shoulder, she’s sure it would have dislocated. As is, it is little more than an uncomfortable inconvenience as she descends with her tentacles.

When she’s solidly on the forest floor, where the waterfall adds its flow to a larger river, she takes a breather and allows the absurdity of what just happened to sink in. A nervous, disbelieving laugh escapes her lips. She did it. She just betrayed her master. She just tried to kill Stein. She did the unthinkable for her kind and escaped, too. Maka was certain that she would perish in the lab today, having expected something to go wrong. But no; everything went to plan. She released RAGNAROK, the world ending experiment, and escaped with her life.

What’s even stranger is that she has a life now: not just in the literal sense but in the philosophical one as well. She has freedom and choice. She can go where she wants and do what she wants; maybe that’s a novel concept to others, but it was never something she considered seriously. Before Crona gave her something other than her master to live for, she didn’t have a big enough reason to chase these things; the desire was always there, but selfish desires have a strange habit of being unable to drive change.

She should go meet up with them soon. If her internal clock is right, they should have detonated the force powder fifteen minutes ago and be on their way to the rendezvous; it won’t do to keep them waiting. They’re such a worry wort.

The feeling of wrongness grows by the second. Crona should be here by now. The clearing they agreed to meet at is only a five minute walk from Medusa’s lair. She’s been waiting for the last fifteen minutes, all the while going back and forth on whether she should search for them or wait just a little bit longer. There’s the chance that while she’s off searching for them, they’ll arrive here and worry. She had the more dangerous job in the end, and she wouldn’t want them to worry about her death for even a second. But on the other hand, just because their job was safer doesn’t mean it was safe.

In the end, she decides to leave and search, her rationale being that it’s better for them to be late and worry about her safety than die because something went wrong and she wasn’t there to help. It is with this optimistically fatalistic outlook that she dashes through the woods, swinging, running, leaping, moving as fast as she can without slowing.

When she breaks through the treeline and spots the building she called home for the last century, her breath catches in her throat. The entrance is collapsed, an impassable heap of rubble and rock. What if Crona had been caught inside during the explosion? They only had her instructions to go off of: no experience of their own with the powder. Did she sign their death when she let them take this job? A part of her brain argues that there was no other way, that the plan couldn’t have worked any other way, but she doesn’t give a damn. If this was the result of the plan, they should have made a different plan - a safer plan.

She circles around to the back entrance, hoping that this side will be open and she’ll be able get inside to search for her friend. No such luck. The back entrance is as bad as, if not worse than the front. This means the interior is collapsed too, as there should have been a line of explosives between the two entrances. Their reasoning for this was that if they both exploded within moments of each other, Medusa and Stein would have less warning and be unable to react and run to the open exit while Crona circled the house.

She turns away from the sight, unwilling and unable to take in the tragedy. Maka is halfway to a grief-fueled meltdown when she spots a heap of black and chestnut crumpled at the base of a tree. Crona!

She rushes to their side, stumbling in her haste. At first glance, they appear to be fine - there’s no blood or unhealthily bent bones - but upon closer inspection they’re anything but fine - too still and unresponsive - but upon even closer inspection, she’s proved wrong yet again. Their pulse is present, if weak, and they draw breath. The biggest problems seem to be the snake attached to their calf, which she quickly tears off to reveal a pair of small holes that dribble blood, and the raised lump on their head.

She doesn’t worry about the snake bite. It’s one of Medusa’s, which means it should be purely paralytic; the bitch uses - or rather used - her snakes to capture and defend, and a quick acting paralytic would be just as good as a deadly venom. What she’s really worried about is the damage from the force powder. They must have been too close to the explosion when it went off and gotten caught in the blast. If they’re lucky, they’ll only have a concussion and some bruises. She doesn’t want to think about their potential damage if they were unlucky.

She doesn’t know what to do. Her mind races to think of ideas that invariably get shot down immediately for one reason or another. Everything she could use to treat their injuries herself is buried under rubble and an apocalyptic bioweapon. Neither of them would be welcome in a village, and even if she trusted a human doctor, Crona’s unique physiology would make them all but untreatable. A veterinarian would encounter the same problem. She could steal supplies to treat them herself, but she doesn’t trust in her ability to get in and out of a village without being seen, which would lead to an aggressive mob of townsfolk.

She’s pulled out of her mind by a quiet gurgle. She watches as they slowly stir, her hope rising with them. Their eyes move beneath their lids and they gurgle again. She moves them to rest on their side to prevent choking. Slowly, ever so slowly, bit by bit, their eyes crack open and lazily roam their field of vision before finally coming to rest on her face. They groan and try to move - at least she thinks that what they were trying to do; really it was an uncoordinated spasm - but she hushes them and tries to convey that they should remain still. Whether they understood her or not remains to be seen, but they do comply.

They smile up at her and in that moment she can believe that everything will be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> I admit, the relationship between crona and maka could be read as more platonic than romantic, but that's because I believe any romance needs a strong base to last long. Also, as neither of them have much socialization at all, i don't think either would be able to recognize romantic feelings or know how to act on them. If I ever write an epilogue, it will be more explicit in the romantic aspect of their relationship.


End file.
